Welcome Back!

1. Welcome Back! Philosophy of Religion 13 January 7th, 2014 Mr. Dezilva

2. Attributes: The Nature of God • God as: • Eternal • Omniscient • Omnipotent • Omnibenevolent • The Philosophical problems that arise from these concepts

3. Attributes cont’d • Boethius • The Consolations of Philosophy (Book V) • The views of Boethius on an Eternal and Omniscient God • God’s foreknowledge and how it relates to free will • A Good God • Does a Good God reward and punish? • God’s Omnibenevolence • Euthyphro Dilemma & Irenaeus • Morality (can it be linked to God?); Kant’s Argument

4. Quick Note on “A Good God” • The Theodicy of Irenaeus • Lived 130 – 202 • Helped form the New Testament (knew John of the Gospel Writers) • Focused on why God allows evil and suffering to have a place in the world.

5. In a nutshell - Irenaeus • Admitted that God appears to allow evil and suffering (and that they exists) • The world was deliberately created with a mixture of goodness and evil • This allows humans to grow, learn, and develop into a mature and free relationship with God. • There has to be evil in the world for us to be able to appreciate good • We were given freedom of choice, this includes the freedom to make “bad” choices.

6. Irenaeus cont’d • We were created in God’s own image – God is free and can make free decisions. • God made us in his own image, but we have to grow into his likeness • Part of being good is an effort of will • But, why did God not make us in his own image and likeness right from the beginning • New born child example • Jonah and the Whale

7. Judeo-Christian Philosophy • God’s attributes are derived from the interweaving of Biblical ideas and concepts from Greek philosophers • Many ideas seen in this unit are a result of the Ancient Greek Philosophies studied in AS • I.e The Prime Mover, Demiurge, use of symbolism, myth, and analogy • An anthropomorphized God, an involved God, a distant God

8. Okay – back to the round up God as Eternal • Two types of Timelines for God • Atemporal • Sempiternal • Philosophical Problems • God limits his omniscience and omnipotence if Sempiternal • God limits his personal relationship, ability to change if Atemporal

9. Important Concepts and Thinkers • Aquinas & The Man on the Hill • The Creation Story from Genesis • Boethius’s “One Glance God” • Process Theology • Swinburne  God is everlasting

10. God as Omnipotent • Omnipotent refers to: • God is all-powerful • God as Pantocrator • God as the Creator • Philosophical Problems • The Paradoxes of the Stone or Free Will Creature • An unpredictable and random God • “Pieces on a Chessboard” • Conflicts with Eternal God • Conflicts with Omnibenevolent God

11. Important Concepts and Thinkers • Descartes: “God can do the logically impossible” • Aquinas:“he can do everything that is absolutely possible’, […]‘everything that does not imply a contradiction is among those possibilities” • Anselm:“A being that than which no greater can be conceived”

12. Important Concepts and Thinkers cont’d • The Doctrine of Kenosis • John MacQuarrie:“God’s limitations are self imposed ““God’s power is different to that of our own; there is an element of unknowable” • Biblical References: • Sarah and Abraham • Who then can be saved?’, Jesus says ‘With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’ Matthew 19:23-26 • Noah’s Ark

13. God as Omniscient Omniscience refers to: • God as “all-knowing” • There is nothing that He cannot know • God has no false beliefs; cannot be mistaken • Philosophical Problems • If God is even in the slightest not all knowing, then this affects his omnipotence & omniscience • If God knew the future and all our moral decisions, do we have any real free will? • If he already knows the acts are going to occur, then what is the purpose of God’s punishments/rewards? • Furthermore, what is the purpose of morality? Is there such thing?

14. Important Concepts and Thinkers • Kant’s Morality Argument • Robot Programmer (General argument, not Kant’s) • Schleiermacher’s Close Friends Analogy • Swinburne’s Sempiternal God • John Calvin and Calvinism

15. Boethius (Omniscience & Eternity) • In Book V of Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius has a conversation with Lady Philosophy • God’s timeline is “all in one” – no past present or future. BUT, is able to understand our daily occurrences completely, as they happen, but does not limit our free will

16. Philosophical Problems • If God knew the future, then he is wrong to reward us or punish us for our behavior • Yet the Bible teaches about divine reward and punishment very clearly • How can God know something that hasn’t happened yet and is uncertain? • And if he does know then it makes the act inevitable and void of any moral conduct. Thus, making reward/punishment unfair. • Is God responsible for things that we do if he is all knowing and knows the act we will do? • And if he does know and it is unchangeable, then what is the point of asking God for change via Prayer?

17. Important Concepts & Themes Boethius’s mistake:God can see things in a different way from the way in which we see them because humans exists within time, God does not have the same time constraints we do. Because humans exist within time; our pasts have happened, a present that is gone in an instant and futures which are uncertain. This uncertain future means that humans have free choice. God’s “One Glance” Understanding God is timeless, and while God can see our past, present and future – he has perfect knowledge of what we will do. In Advance All events occur simultaneously in God’s eternal presence, therefore there is no “in advance” and it makes no sense to talk about what God will know in the future (or has in the past)

18. God as Omnibenevolent Omnibenevolencerefers to: • All-Good – God is perfectly good • An All-Loving God only capable of doing Good • “God is love” (1 John 4:8) • The Goodness of God Philosophical Problems: • The Problem of Evil • Analogical “Love” • Favouritism and Unjust Punishment (Dawkins) • Reward and Punishment • “Nature’s everyday performances” (Mill)

19. Important Concepts and Thinkers: • Hesed (Old Testament) • Agape (New Testament) • “God is the supreme standard of Goodness” • William Alston • The Crucified God • Jurgen Moltmann • God’s love is an analogy • St. Thomas Aquinas • Plato’s Euthyphro Dilemma

20. Possible Exam Questions • Critically assess the traditional Christian concept of God being eternal. • If God is omnipotent, then he must be able to do absolutely anything.’ Discuss • ‘If God knows all our moral choices in advance, then we cannot be justly blamed or rewarded for what we do.’ Discuss • If God knows what we are going to do, he has no right to reward the good and punish the wicked.’ Discuss • Critically examine the use of myth as an approach to understand the nature of God. • Critically assess the philosophical problems raised by the belief that God is omniscient.

21. OCR Questions • Critically assess the philosophical problems raised by belief that God is omniscient. • Boethius was successful in his argument that God rewards and punishes justly. Discuss. • Critically assess the problems for believers who say that God is omniscient. • Critically assess the view that the concept of miracle is inconsistent with belief in a benevolent God. • Assess the claim that the universe provides no evidence for the existence of an omnipotent God. • Evaluate the philosophical problems raised by the belief that God is eternal.

22. Plan an essay from last years exam paper: Evaluate the philosophical problems raised by the belief that God is eternal. [35]